Running Mom's Motivation

The running has been great lately, and I promise to post more coming up. But today is my favorite holiday and I wanted to focus on that.

To my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, thank you for all of the wonderful blessings you have bestowed on me. Thank you for the forgiveness of sins and eternal life that you offer freely to all. Your love and influence in my life gives me freedom to be more than I could be on my own.


Total Miles For 2010 =239

Posted in: on Sunday, April 4, 2010 at at 7:55 AM 0 comments  

I have not done much running outside during the winter. The weather was much worse this year than last, and I have been more sensitive to the cold. I would pretty much do a run outside during the day on Tuesdays and my long run outside on Saturdays. The rest of the time I have been indoors. I know, I have turned into a wimp.

The nice thing about the treadmill is that I can watch the news while running. And I have gotten in better shape since getting the gym membership. I tend to lift weights and do more core workouts while I am at the gym. But, I forgot what it was like to do an early morning run outdoors.

This morning I had a chance to remember. With the weather getting better, I decided to run outdoors. While I always feel good after a workout no matter if I am outside or in the gym, being on the roads in the early morning is exhilarating. There just isn't much at the gym that can really be called exhilarating. The weather was crisp and it was mostly quiet. Another nice thing about running outdoors is that I have time to jump back into bed before the alarm goes off. Now if only I wasn't freezing when I got back into bed, maybe I could actually sleep.

Total Miles in 2010 =183

Posted in: on Wednesday, March 17, 2010 at at 7:37 AM 0 comments  

I am so very proud of my husband. He has been working hard at the gym for many months now. He has also been eating better. He wants to have a positive impact on the rest of his life and be an example to his children. That is the same reason I started running. Although the weight is not coming off as quickly as he would like, he hasn't given up hope. He really is inspiring.


David and I rarely get a chance to work out together. I usually go to the gym at 5am and he goes at 10 or 11 at night. With the kids, there just isn't much opportunity to do it together. This weekend we are at my brother's house in Maryland. One of the great things about visiting my brother's family is that the cousins have a great time playing together and it requires very little parental involvement. Therefore, David and I were able to go for a run yesterday knowing that our children wouldn't be too much of a burden on my brother and his wife.


I told David I would let him set the pace. I didn't want to push him too hard because that is one of the primary ways to get injured. And injury often leads to defeat for the beginner. We had decided to do four miles. I knew we would be walking quite a bit, so I figured with all the work he had been doing at the gym it should be doable. I shouldn't have let David set the pace. He instantly took off too fast. I made a comment about how I wasn't going to be able to keep up with him, but I quickly realized that he wasn't going to be able to keep the pace going either. He made the common mistake of starting with a pace that feels right in the beginning, but is really too fast. The fast starting pace and the viscous hills in my brother's neighborhood really took their toll on him. David ended up having to cut the run short at 3 miles.


I finished up my fourth mile and came back home, but realized when I got in the house that I really wanted to run some more. David acted as if I was nuts when I told him I was going out for some more. He has been telling everyone how I kicked his butt. But if there is one thing I learned from the beginning of that run, it is that once he gets fit, I will have no chance of keeping up with him. For now I can revel in my superior physical fitness, and when I no longer can, I will be his biggest cheerleader.

Total Miles In 2010 = 118.3

Posted in: on Sunday, February 14, 2010 at at 10:14 AM 1 comments  

I could not get my butt out of bed this morning. I felt exhausted. But really, it is probably the darkness that keeps me there. I get tired of going out when it is dark and coming home when it is dark. At least it is getting to the point that when I leave the gym or get home from a run the sun is just starting to peek through the clouds.

The main problem with me not getting out of bed when my alarm goes off is that I feel so anxious and guilty for not getting up that I don't sleep well anyway. I will sit there and think about the miles that I have run so far this week and how many total I will have for the week if I don't make up the run I am missing. I know, I know....I am pathetic.

Total miles in 2010 = 106.3

Posted in: on Thursday, February 11, 2010 at at 8:08 AM 0 comments  

I am turning into a southerner. I find myself getting cold all of the time. But I still enjoy winter running. Well at least most of the time I do. Yesterday's run was one of the most miserable I have ever done. We were recently the beneficiaries of two large winter storms exactly one week apart.

Last Saturday I went for a run during the storm. It was cold and the snow was coming down hard. But I was able to run in the tire tracks on the roads most of the time. It was a beautiful run except when I had to run directly into the wind, which wasn't too often. I kept the run short because running through snow really tires my legs out. The snow pelting my face during those times when I was apposing the wind caused skin issues later in the day, but I was feeling good.

Contrast that to yesterday. It wasn't too cold (about 30 degrees) and there was very little snow on the road. I had gone to the battlefield near my house because it had rained all night and many of the roads around here were pretty wet. The road that I ran on had been plowed but had sections where there was some slush...no problem. I have been slowly increasing my long run and had planned to do 9 miles either last week or yesterday. But since the road is only 3.5 miles long and the weather wasn't great, I decided to cut it short and do 7. The first mile was ok. The second was heavenly. It was so beautiful in that section of road. And the snow made everything very quiet.

I just had another 1.5 to do before the turn around. As I came out from the more wooded area and entered the open fields I started to realize that there was indeed quite a bit of snow coming down.....WET SNOW! And the wind seemed to be blowing harder than I had remembered. No problem, it was just another 1.5 miles to the turn around and I would have my back to the wind. I started hitting wind gusts that seemed like they were 50 miles an hour. I am sure they were not, but it seemed that way at the time. I kept checking my garmin to see how much longer I had before I could turn around. I climbed one final hill before the turn around and thanked God that I didn't have to go any further in that direction.

When I turned around the wind died down for about 10 seconds. Then it started back up more continuously than it had been before. I was sure this must be what it was like to run in Antarctica. The funny thing is that my body was actually a little too warm, but my face felt like an icicle. The wind didn't stop until I re-entered that beautiful wooded area of the road again. As beautiful as it was, I just couldn't enjoy it anymore. By this time, the dog and I were both so miserable that we had been pushing the pace and I ended up having to stop and walk multiple times. What is crazier than running in a blizzard...why, of course, walking in a blizzard! We spent the rest of the time alternating between walking and running just trying to get back to the car as quickly as possible. Then I tried to stretch without the wind blowing me over and we were on our way back home.

Funny, looking back on it, it doesn't seem that bad. But at the time, I know that those park rangers that drove by me were not the only ones who thought I was nuts for being out there. Oh well, at least I didn't have to do my long run on the treadmill.

Posted in: on Sunday, February 7, 2010 at at 3:40 PM 0 comments  

I was really trying to keep up with this blog and did so for quite a few months, but I think I just saw a notice that said my last post was in June of 08....Really? Did I not post a thing in all of 09? Well, thank you Slugline for reminding me that someone might actually pay attention to this thing.

I will not attempt to catch you all up on the last year. Suffice it to say that I had a pretty low period where I wasn't enjoying the running much. My miles dropped and I started to gain weight. Not a lot, but I noticed it. I thought having a goal race in mind would help me to get things back on track and I picked up a new running buddy. I registered for the OBX marathon excited that it would be my first 26.2. Bad idea. While I completely loved running with my new buddy, she is much faster than I am and I ran with her too much. We didn't increase the miles too quickly ( a common runner mistake that leads to injury) but I was pushing my pace for most of my runs. Before I knew it, I was injured.

I had a pretty good case of shin splints. I tried running with the injury for a while and that didn't work. My darling brother reveled in telling me that when he was in high school and had shin splints he didn't get better until he took 3 weeks off from running. I couldn't do that....I had a marathon to train for! I would try taking a few days (3) off in a row. I would ice my leg every few hours. I would use ibuprofen. I put on a compression bandage. I would feel a little better. Then I would try to run and it would all fall apart. It got to the point where it was excruciating to run and hurt just to walk....time to see the doctor. She confirmed my fears. I didn't have shin splints after all. I had the dreaded stress fracture. My buddy told me I had time to heal and still train for the marathon, but I knew I didn't and if I attempted it I might end up in worse condition.

Around this time my husband started getting serious about wanting to shed some pounds. We joined a gym together. I could only use the stationary bikes and weight machines. It killed me to watch the other people on the treadmills while I slugged through 45 minutes on the bike with my aircast on. I gained more weight. No matter how hard I worked on that bike and lifted those weights I couldn't shed the pounds I gained. I realized that there is just no substitute for running when it comes to burning calories. It was exhilerating and scary the first time that I was allowed to walk on the treadmill with my cast on. I followed my rehab directions exactly as my doctor had given them to me. It was hard because by this time my love for running had been rekindled but I could do nothing about it.

Slowly but surely I got back to running. I have remained injury free since restarting and I am building my mileage very slowly. The good news is that I have continued to keep my gym membership. I DO NOT get on those bikes, but I do continue to weight train and work my core a couple of times a week. I am more fit than before I was injured and the wieght training apppears to be helping my running. I am considering training for another marathon, but I want to build my base slowly before I make that decision. I am hoping it will help keep me from ending up back on that bike again. I hope that when I have another period where running doesn't seem as fun any more I will look back on last year and realize that this too shall pass.

2010 miles = 97

Posted in: on at at 8:59 AM 0 comments